On Sunday, Butler was photographed with his lips (and mitts) all over a woman he purportedly met while she was playing violin along the Venice Beach boardwalk.

According to shutterbugs on the scene, Gerry, decked out in unsightly camouflage shorts and accompanied by some pals, stopped to hear the musical lady do her thing. But instead of tossing the traditional tip of, say, a buck or two in her violin case, he ponied up his digits.

Then, perhaps feeling that this was a bit chintzy on his part, the actor also offered up a little something extra: his most suave, saliva-soaked moves, with snappers catching his hand wandering toward the lady's Lycra-encased derriere as they kissed and clinched on the sidewalk.

For Butler, it was just another fun-filled night on the town. The previous evening, he joined Jessica Simpson and a dozen or so pals for dinner at a Santa Monica steakhouse.

But like the duo's previous bread-breaking in New York last October, this get-together wasn't so much a date as a group outing arranged by mutual friends.

Besides, if the starlet was looking to jump back into the dating pool following her reportedly short-lived romance with Billy Corgan, chances are she would have worn something more flattering than acid-wash, ankle-length jeans forged in the darkest depths of the '80s (seriously, perm-topped babes in Whitesnake videos wouldn't be caught dead in those things).

Anyhoo, with Gerry's social life as active as it is, it's understandable that he sometimes has a night when he's off his game.

And that brings us to this little nugget from the New York Post, which claims Butler drew a blank when he encountered "One Tree Hill" starlet Sophia Bush a few days back at Los Angeles restaurant Ago.

"They had previously met, but Gerard seemed to have no idea who she was," relays a bystander. "He looked puzzled, and then said, 'Oh yes, you look completely different from when I last saw you. Have you changed your hair?'"

Nice recovery attempt, but Sophia's coif was the same as always, which makes us wonder what the odds are that he'd be able to pick his violinist pucker partner out of a lineup.